Lily's 9 Months Old!

I can't believe it!!! She's getting so big and growing like a weed. She had her well-check yesterday and everything looks good. She's small like her brother, but super healthy (well, minus the runny nose she started in the morning :-).
She's FINALLY cutting her top tooth and she slept thru the night the last three nights (yea!). It's probably b/c she's getting sick and her body needs the rest more than food, but I'll take it :-).
Some of you know I've been concerned about her right leg and the pedi checked her out yesterday. At first he thought it was fused "funny" with how she was standing on it, but after an exam he changed his mind. She has full range of movement and other than being annoyed he was poking at her, didn't act like anything was hurting. So, we're off to physical therapy with Lily to see what they say. If she's still doing this at our one year check up or the PT finds something we'll then take her to an orthopedic surgeon to get him to check her out. Hopefully she's just stubborn like Abby was and we'll get her moving soon.
Here's her stats for those interested:
Weight - 17 lbs 1 oz (25%)
Height - 25" (50 - 75%)

Another Milestone

The week of Thanksgiving we finally moved the twins to toddler beds. I had wanted to wait until they were 3 to make the move since we had crib tents and I Lily was still little, but we were having big issues with Abby during nap time at school. So in an effort to do our part and help the school help our kids, we made the switch.

A month or two before the switch I got the bedding picked out and ordered. We were set. The kids went to school on Monday that week so while they were gone we converted their cribs to toddler beds. John had the week off so we were ready to tackle any issues together. They came home and were super excited about their new beds. At bedtime, we read our stories then climbed into bed. We kissed them good night and told them we'd see them in the morning when the light turned green (Their little alarm clock...it's the coolest thing, it glows green when it's okay to get out of bed. There's an "alarm" in the morning at and then a nap setting too. Jake totally has it down and stays in bed in the AM till the light turns green.). They were a little confused at first and we watched the monitor nervously. Jake got out of bed, walked to the door, then walked back to bed, climbed in and cried for a few minutes before falling asleep. Abby kept laying down then setting up and looking around, laying down then setting up and looking around. She did this for 30 minutes then fell asleep too. That was it? Wow!

The second night Jake climbed into Abby's bed to sleep. When I moved him back he said he was scared. I told him there was nothing to be afraid of and he's slept in his bed ever since.

Bedtime has gone way better than we ever thought. I was really worried how I would chase them back into bed while nursing Lily and putting her to bed, but we rarely have issues.

Nap time on the other hand is a battle. The rule is they must stay in their room and lay in their bed for 2 hours. I'd love for them to sleep, but you can't force that. They must however, have some "quiet" time. The first nap was horrible. They played, ran out of bed, pulled on the curtains, etc. for an hour and a half before falling asleep. Some days are better than others and they nap better when Daddy's home. However, there have been several days they don't nap when it's just me. Nap times are tough for me alone as Lily gets up when the twins go down. When she gets up she's hungry and ready to nurse and have lunch. I would also like to eat. However, many times, I'm chasing the kids back in bed with her on my hip. Thursday last week was the worst and I finally turned the monitor off and just let them run wild in their room - Lily and I had to eat and their "quiet time" was up in 30 minutes. When I got them out of their room, they had emptied their dresser. Socks, pajamas, sheets and underwear were everywhere! I looked at the mess and didn't say a word. Instead I grabbed some socks, their shoes and loaded them up in the car. I'm not sure what Abby thought was going to happen but she cried all the way to the car. We just ran to Walmart (a two minute trip) to get a few things. I sure wasn't in the mood after that to hang out at the house with two cranky toddlers and a super cranky momma. When we got to Walmart, Abby was asleep in the car . I woke her up and put everyone in the stroller. Half way thru our shopping, I noticed Jake was asleep sitting up in the stroller. Ugh! Why couldn't they have napped in their room.

We ended up going to bed half an hour early that night, but could have done it sooner I think. The kids started asking to go to bed at 6:00 that night! The next day at school, the teacher said Jake fell asleep in 5 minutes at nap time. The quickest ever for him! He was still tired from the day before.

On a good note. Abby has done great at school during nap time since we switched. Jake however has become more challenging (and we didn't have issues with him at nap time before :-). Oh well, they like to keep life interesting!

Of course Jake had to have firetrucks. Abby got butterflies and flowers.

They both LOVE their beds and want to play in their room a lot now. They read books and play with their toys on their beds all the time.

More Holiday Pics of Lily

Abby isn't into pictures at the moment and while Jake is, I didn't have any holiday shirts for the twins this year. I just hadn't had time to go get some and when I looked yesterday I couldn't find their size (that's why we weren't in our holiday gear with Santa this weekend :-). However, I did find a cute outfit for Lily and figured I'd just grab some of her since it's her first year. I loved the twins' first xmas pics and so this morning I set out to grab some of Lily. They turned out great and she was such a great model.

I may try to grab some pics with all three this weekend if I can convince the grinch to help out. Well see. He's coming down with a cold so help with a photo shoot may totally be out of the question. :-)

Are we on the Naughty or Nice List?

This past weekend we had our annual PAMOM holiday party. I love this party and the kids have more fun each year. We have crafts, balloon artists, face painting, bounce houses, and of course Santa. The main thing I love about the party is free pictures with Santa. The twins weren't in the mood for pictures, but at least they did sit with Santa so I could get a group shot. We did however, get some great shots of Lily with Santa for her first Christmas.

School Days

We LOVE our school and the teachers, Ms. Christie and Ms. Karen. The kids (especially Abby) constantly ask to go to school and will also say they can't wait to go to school and show X to Ms. Christie or their friends. We are all so in love with this place. Our two have behavior issues and they are bending over backyards to help (and they haven't thrown in the towel like the first place :-). We are getting them some help and will have ECI coming 2x a month to help my guys learn to listen and cooperate with the group starting in December. They already come and work with the kids 1x a week at home, we'll just be extending that to school next month.
The teachers always plan great things for the kids and manage to snap a few pics along the way. Here's a sampling of their fun.

The Halloween parade - their class dressed up as cats. Abby still talks about this today and asks where her tail is all the time.

Making bread - Abby still has texture issues, but Jake knew exactly what to do.

Abby's favorite thing in their room - zoo animals. She plays with these everyday and sets them up all pointing her.

Some fun time outside and one of Abby's friends, Will.

Dress up time!

Ooh - cookies! Ms. Christie didn't have to help Jake at all.

For Fire Safety Week they had a firetruck and firefighter come talk to the kids. Then they walked around the school looking for "fires" to put out with their hoses. Notice my two wouldn't wear their hats.

Trick or Treat!

This year, the twins dressed up as Dora and Diego. Two of their favorite characters. Not wanted to pay full price for new costumes ($70 or $80 for something they'll wear a handful of times, I don't think so :-), I set out to find good, used costumes in August. In late September/early October I finally found both of the costumes I needed (for $20 total!!). I was so happy. However, you never know if it's going to be hot or cold on Halloween and on Saturday morning I finally decided it was going to be to chilly for the kids to wear the shorts that came with their costume. I set out for some orange and blue sweatpants for them to wear instead. You'd think this time of year it would be easy to find orange sweats, but I couldn't find them anywhere! Finally, I found some orange pants in the boys section for Abby and some great blue, cargo pants for Jake. Jake's looked authentic, but I think Abby's looked like astronaut pants :-) Oh well, they had fun and still looked cute.

After naps on Saturday, we dressed the kids and set out for a Trunk or Treat at the kids' school. The parking lot was littered with cars decorated for halloween. The kids had fun going from car to car getting candy and we even ran into their teacher (which was the first time John got to meet her).

After the Trunk or Treat, we headed home, ate a quick bite and got Lily ready for that night. I tried to get some good group shots, but the twins were so ready to head out and wanted nothing with pictures.

Lily however, was an angel and loved getting her picture taken.

(I just love this last shot!)

It's 7:00 and we're FINALLY ready to head out!

All done and ready to eat some CANDY! Sunday morning, Jake walked into the kitchen and instead of asking for breakfast, he said "I want to eat some candies!"

Halloween Crafts

We did a TON of Halloween crafts in October and I wanted to share a few of my favorites.

I'm leading with my all time favorite. This was the coolest craft we've done I think and the kids had a blast. It was a puffy paint ghost. First we had to make our puffy paint. I added shaving cream and glue to a bowl for the kids stir. They loved that part.

Then it was time to paint the ghosts I had drawn on old paper bags. Abby decided to use the spoon, but Jake got dirty and loved scooping the paint out of the bowl.

After we painted our ghost, we added googly eyes and a mouth. It took almost a full day for these things to dry, but once they did I cut them out and they were so very neat. They stayed puffy and felt really cool. This is one project we'll be doing again.

Of course, after we picked our pumpkins out at the pumpkin patch we had to decorate them. Knifes are out of the question so we did the next best thing - paint! My kids love to paint if you haven't figured that out yet. Jake did great, but Abby kept painting and painting that pumpkin. Soon you couldn't even see orange. She tried to pick it up at one point and of course it slid right through her hands. Then she figured out she could make hand prints with all the paint on her hands so her pumpkin became an "ink pad" for hand prints and she took almost all the paint off. Oh well. They both had a blast.

(Jake's pumpkin)

Another craft we did incorporated the letter "P". Jake's favorite color is black so I drew a P out on black paper and let them paint the P. They also got to paint 4 foam pumpkins to glue onto the P. They carried those things around for ever. They really like doing crafts around a letter and Jake is so into his ABCs at the moment. Abby is past her ABCs, Shapes, Colors and Animals and so I think it's time we get into words. She knows letters make up words and will combine various letters to spell words (although she'll put together XGEY and say it spells FISH).